I attended an HR dinner meeting the other night and was sitting at a table with a former student of mine who mentioned she was attending the meeting despite the fact that she was out of HR for the time being and had no immediate plans to return. (She was enjoying her opportunity to rear a long waited for baby.) She mentioned that the reason she was still going to meetings is that she did intend to go back to an HR job at some point in the future and wanted to keep up on the field. She is not the only person to have that need. People who have been unemployed for long periods of time also have that problem. She asked me what I thought she should do… so here is my advice on how to stay current in HR when you are not currently in HR.

Blogs

My first piece of advice was that she needed to find a variety of blogs that she enjoyed reading. They should cover various areas including compliance, legal, compensation, engagement, talent management and perhaps labor. You can simply set these up on Google reader and peruse them once or twice a week. But beyond reading them you need to comment on them as well. Express opinions and/or add you own observations on the subject. This will keep your name current in the field without having to write your own blog. Of course this means you CANNOT BE ANONYMOUS.

LinkedIn Groups

Naturally you will want to maintain your LinkedIn profile. You will want to expand it by belonging to groups associated with human resources. There is no shortage of these groups. As with blogs you want to use these to keep your name current by responding to questions asked by other members or by posing your own questions.

Twitter

This still scares many people. I cannot tell you how many times in the last week I met people who said “There is no way I am doing that.” I think that is short-sighted. As with everything else you do it is just about time and image management. There are a number of tools to help you organize your Twitter world. But it allows you to be made aware of articles or other blog posts that will be informative. It allows you to pay attention to some very significant players in any given arena.

Webinars

There are multiple webinars; many offered for free, that will keep you current. You find out about these through Twitter or by signing up for newsletters from various companies. Many law firms put on free webinars take advantage of them.

Newsletter

Other very valuable resources are the email newsletters that various companies and organizations send out. I receive them on trends, futurism, strategic HR, legal updates, safety, and a few others. Most can be read fairly quickly during some quiet time at Starbucks or when the baby is down for a nap. Search around or ask some of your LinkedIn or Twitter contacts for recommendations.

Conferences

If you can swing it financially local SHRM conferences or SHRM National or some other group conference is always a good way to stay in touch with what is going on and also stay in touch with other professionals. If you are a stay-at-home mom it is also an opportunity to talk to adults that you don’t normally get during the day.

Those are some of my ideas, what else should I have told her? What are you doing or what are you telling others

"Patricia: Congratulations on our MBA. Keep writing about those experiences. Submit it to your local paper, maybe you will get published or interviewed. May help bring some attention to your desire for temp or part-time work.

"Hi Michael, I think your advice is also relevant for HR Practitioners who tend to be busy with their specific schedules and do not get the opportunity to stay current with areas of HR other than their own area of work. Thank you for your views.

"

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MikeHaberman

September 19, 2017 05:31 PM

Anuradha: Good point. People don't lose touch just because they happen to be away from the workplace.